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August 2023

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214 articles

August 31
- Magnatone and Billy Gibbons have teamed up for one sharped dressed signature amp and cab
- Watch Martin Miller and Tom Quayle join forces to turn Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean into an instrumental fusion guitar epic
- Musician reimagines nursery rhymes in the style of Pearl Jam, The White Stripes, Radiohead and more
- Is Slash’s ‘Hunter Burst’ Les Paul the next million dollar guitar? It is headed to the auction block – and Elvis’s Blue Hawaii J-45 is joining it too
- ThorpyFX celebrates five years of The Dane by refreshing its Pete Honore signature overdrive/boost with switchable clipping
- Fender had almost $100 million of retail sales cancelled in 2022 as post-pandemic demand crunch hit sector and guitars “were no longer the priority”
- World's best-selling audio interfaces reimagined as Focusrite launches Scarlett 4th Gen range
- Is IK's new flagship iRig HD X the ideal compact interface for guitar streamers?
August 30
- “You’ve got to find your own sound, your own thing... Let that shine because that is what will touch people”: Eric Johnson has some sage advice for aspiring guitarists
- Why songwriters should learn the piano
- 5 more artists that loved their gear so much they named themselves after it
- Oneohtrix Point Never used AI tools Riffusion, Jukebox and Adobe Enhanced Speech on new album Again
- “Sepultura fans have been asking for a signature model from me for a long time”: Andreas Kisser and Jackson team up for the Pro Series Quadra Soloist
- Epiphone and Adam Jones unveil ‘Sensation’ – the latest Silverburst Les Paul Custom from the Tool guitarist’s Art Collection series
- Cherry Audio's Harmonia synth plugin brings together additive, vector and wavetable synthesis in sweet harmony
- Gibson refreshes the Les Paul Standard with the 12 dazzling new finish options of the Custom Color Series
- SampleRadar: 485 free nasty leads samples
August 29
- Universal Audio reveals Apollo Twin X USB, promising 'elite' audio performance for Windows-based producers
- Zildjian releases 400 genuine vintage A cymbals from its private family vault, and you can buy them
- Fender honours the late outlaw country icon Waylon Jennings with a meticulous $25,000 Custom Shop replica of his leather-covered ’54 Telecaster
- Has your Klon gone? You might need the Thneed, the “highly customisable, light-to-mid gain overdrive” from Supercool Pedals
- BLEASS' Fusion is the Swiss Army knife of distortion plugins
- Native Instruments' latest Traktor DJ Controller is 'X1 of a kind'
- Unlock Josh Homme’s QOTSA tones with the Skeleton Key, the new £99 drive pedal from Funny Little Boxes
- “The first time I saw a Martin, it was like an exotic creature”: Watch Eric Clapton run the rule over his Guitar Center exclusive signature acoustics
- The KLF remake scrapped 1987 album and donate it to British Library
August 28
- Chad Smith on his contribution to Dua Lipa’s Break My Heart
- 10 things you didn't know Logic Pro could do
August 26
- 6 tips for mixing effectively on headphones
August 25
- Want to live in Stewart Copeland’s $6 million house? It’ll cost you $25,000 a month
- Former Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden has died, aged 72
- “Your only job”: Olivia Rodrigo reveals the songwriting advice given to her by Jack White
- “He likes first takes is what I learned from Stevie Wonder”: Watch session legend Dean Parks talk Innervisions, Steely Dan and Larry Carlton’s “magic” ES-335
- Pioneer DJ’s acquisition of Serato would effectively “eliminate competition”, says InMusic Chief Executive, and suggests that the company will take legal action to try and block the deal
- Martin officially unveils John Mayer 20th Anniversary acoustics – and a mahogany-topped D-15E and affordable sapele bodied SC-10E-02 joins them too
- Serato brings stem separation to its Sample 2.0 plugin: an instant remixing tool for your DAW?
- “He’s like a poster from my bedroom wall that’s come to life. He’s got this black Strat with nine pickups and he’s saying, ‘Do you think it’s a bit mad?’”: Noel Gallagher on guitar shopping with Johnny Marr
- Sebastian Mullaert on his cabin-in-the-woods studio: "I walk into the beautiful forest and have all the tools to play around with and be a child"
- Fart of noise: Kate Bush was known to sample her own flatulence and make music with it on her Fairlight, says former collaborator
- Baby Audio and Andrew Huang are making big moves with Transit, your new one-stop transition plugin
August 24
- Harley Benton heads South with its new Delta Blues Resonator
- Calvin Harris says that making music using just an Amiga 500+ and a simple tracker taught him a valuable lesson: “I made my first album on that - I used it long after I should have stopped using it”
- Beato it: Gibson reveals second Rick Beato signature model finish - "My signature guitar is the one that I reach for every morning"
- Baby Audio and Andrew Huang think that their new Transit plugin is all you need to create ear-catching transitions
- "Never call me your drummer again": remembering the time Charlie Watts punched Mick Jagger in the face
- Flora and Son: Could the next big Apple TV+ hit be a movie about online guitar lessons?
- Get better acoustic guitar tone with these 6 affordable and easy upgrades
August 23
- Eric Clapton pays tribute to Robbie Robertson in rare interview: "He was the visionary. I have no doubt that he wrote all those songs"
- Millenium's new MPS-750X Pro Mesh electronic drum set offers full-shells for under £800
- Watch: Ringo Starr's drummer Gregg Bissonette breaks down his favourite Beatles drum beats and fills
- Was the iconic ‘frog bass’ sound in Michael Jackson’s Thriller created using the “toy-like” Casiotone CT-401?
- 10 PA mistakes every band makes
- Strymon releases a plugin version of its Deco pedal, giving DAW users the processing power of two tape machines
- Have the Rolling Stones just announced their new album with a local newspaper ad for a glass repair company?
August 22
- Universal Audio expands its guitar effects lineup with four compact stompboxes offering studio-quality compression, reverb and tape echo emulation
- “This guitar embodies everything I love about playing and teaching”: Epiphone specs up an ES-335 for the internet's favourite guitar teacher, Marty Schwartz
- Seeds by Lemonaide is an “ethical AI” platform that can generate chord and melody MIDI data for use in your DAW
- Fender has just added over a dozen new acoustic models to its California Series
- Arturia drops Acid V, a new plugin emulation of Roland’s TB-303 Bass Line synth
- Pharrell Williams says he’s been working on new NERD music: “I wanted great chords. I want to use chords I never used before”
- Schecter’s new Sunset Extreme series classes up the double-cut metal guitar format with flamed maple tops, stainless steel frets and USA made pickups
- Calvin Harris reveals his early love of Jamiroquai and the Spin Doctors: “I became obsessed with basslines… they had an amazing bass player”
- Jack Antonoff on vintage gear, analogue synths and Taylor Swift’s Midnights: "The Oberheim OB-8 was the star of that album"
- Watch Van Halen’s incendiary 1984 Monsters Of Rock set – and Eddie’s 10-minute guitar solo – at Castle Donington as pro-shot footage emerges online
- "The sound of this amp on its own is absolutely unbelievable": Watch The Darkness's Dan Hawkins showcase the Marshall Studio JTM
August 21
- Slash teases a new signature Les Paul based on his main Guns N' Roses stage guitar – the “factory second” plain-top named Jessica
- "Vocal deepfakes are here to stay": AI voice cloning is about to change pop music forever. Here's why
- Xotic Effects ups the headroom as it gives its Bass BB Preamp pedal the V1.5 treatment
- YouTube sets out its 3 AI music principles, as Universal Music chairman Lucian Grainge compares the “inspiring” generative technology to sampling, MIDI and Pro Tools
- Sunn Amplification is bringing back the Buzz Osborne-approved PL-20 Beta rack-mounted preamp
- MIDI Innovation Awards 2023: 15 finalists include a strummable chord generator, an abacus-activated synth and more
- Lil’ Wayne channels Eddie Van Halen on new Jon Batiste single Uneasy – but it’s not quite our 21st-century Beat It moment
- So wrong, it's right: 5 musical errors that turned out to be great
- "I’m the world's oldest battle rapper": Meet the 66-year-old retiree turning the world of battle rap on its head
- Paul Gilbert and Positive Grid unveil special limited run Spark Mini packed with the shred icon’s “firebreathing rock tone”
- Back 2 School: let the musical journey begin
- You can currently buy Behringer’s UC200 chorus pedal in a bundle with white vinegar or a cat calming device and we have no idea why
- Issue 400 of Future Music is out now
August 19
- Chris Lake on AI: "Huge benefits are going to come from AI, but it really needs regulation. The ways it can be abused are far beyond what most people understand"
- PA speaker jargon buster: Everything you need to know about PA systems and live sound
August 18
- The Killers issue an apology after inviting Russian drummer on stage in Georgia, and referring to the fan as the audience's "brother"
- Way Huge goes nuclear with the Stone Burner Sub Atomic Fuzz – is this Dune-inspired stompbox a future cult classic?
- This $69 overdrive pedal nearly had Andertons fooled in a blindfold test with a real Klon Centaur
- “John, I’ve got this insured for a million dollars. These are the Stradivari of guitar collecting”: Watch Matt Swanson introduce Blackbird Studios’ John McBride to his 1930 Martin OM-45 Deluxe
- Tony Visconti says he doesn’t admire any modern producers because they’re making “bullshit records with loops”
- SBC takes “sci-fi and ergonomics” to new extremes on the headless Thrace II – an eco-friendly multi-scale baritone electric that is a one-off in every sense
- Harley Benton releases three new finishes for its popular CST-24 and CST-24T electric guitar ranges
- Chris Lake on teaching himself to produce with a laptop and nothing else: "I’ve released music that I’ve only monitored on laptop speakers"
- “I can honestly say it’s the most fun and inspiring plugin I’ve ever used”: Mike Stringer and MixWave team up to bring you his Spiritbox tones in digital form
- “If you have too much distortion it feels like a sponge”: Kirk Hammett reveals the secret behind his Metallica rhythm tone and advises against high-gain overkill
- Hear remaining Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reunite on Dolly Parton’s cover of Let It Be
- Produce Like... Model Man: "Ableton was just the thing I needed to connect the dots between classical piano and production"
- 12 artists on how they beat writer's block and finish songs: "The point when I want to kill myself is usually a good indicator that the track is finished"
August 17
- SnapBeat could be the simplest, cutest lo-fi sampler you can buy
- Why is it so hard to finish a track? We explain how you can break free of the 4-bar loop and actually make some music
- Could musicians follow Hollywood actors and go on strike over the threat posed by AI? Hozier says that he would “absolutely” join in solidarity
- The Barbie soundtrack is massive hit, but here are 9 movies that have had more streams of their music
- The super rare Fender amp that Kurt Cobain used on In Utero
- How joan recorded a million-streaming debut album in their bedroom: "Every melody matters. If the melody isn’t undeniably singable, the song isn’t going to stick"
August 16
- Suki Sou: "Making a living from music is like trying to compose a symphony on a calculator"
- Deadmau5 says that he plays pre-recorded DJ sets “all the time”, and reveals the “dead giveaway” that audiences should look out for
- "The worst track we ever had to record" – why 3/4 of the Beatles hated Maxwell's Silver Hammer
- Fantastic (stock) plugins and how to use them: Logic Pro Space Designer
- What's great and not so great about Gibson Les Paul Juniors?
- This Chinese zither cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It comes complete with a rework of Eddie Van Halen’s epic guitar solo
- 14 tips to master the art of wavetable synthesis
- SampleRadar: 560 free warehouse techno samples
August 15
- Watch Erja Lyytinen bust out the kazoo and pay tribute to Jimi Hendrix with a blazing slide cover of Crosstown Traffic
- JHS Pedals resurrects the Ross Electronics brand and relaunches it with five new pedals – and a documentary
- ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus says that AI will be “the most fantastic co-writer you will ever have”
- Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr has a new signature Fender Jaguar – a built-to-rock short-scale bass, finished in Tiger’s Blood Orange
- The ultimate guide to wavetable synthesis
- Classic interview: Robbie Robertson on The Last Waltz, his bronze Strat and playing in the eye of the storm with Dylan – "On that tour in 1965 and ’66… I have never heard of anybody going through something like that, ever, in music history"
- Schecter gets graphic on its new signature models for The Cure bassist Simon Gallup
- Hermanos Gutiérrez: "It's not about skills, it's not about technique – it's about the feeling you put into that music"
- Jim Dunlop combines fuzz and a low-frequency wah sweep on Japanese shred legend Akira Takasaki’s signature Cry Baby
- Levon Vincent: "A nice vintage synth can sound pretty good, but if you layer that with the punch of software it sounds ten times better"
- Quick Tips: How to identify and fix phase issues
- K-Klass: "I used the redundancy payout to buy a Roland TR-505 and my dad kicked me out the house! He only apologised when we had a record in the charts..."
August 14
- Foo Fighters enlist ‘superfan’ Michael Bublé for surprise vocal guest-slot on Haven't Met You Yet
- Django Django on the dance music-inspired Off Planet: "I started making music in the ’90s with an E-mu sampler, so part of my brain is still stuck there"
- Shergold has a new guitar series called Telstar and we're surprised at the price
- Dubreq launches pocket-sized drum machine Stylophone BEAT
- Billy Duffy and Ian Astbury resurrect Death Cult for 40th anniversary tour
August 12
- You’ve seen him on The Eras Tour, now watch Taylor Swift bassist Amos Heller get Justice for Jason Newsted in a fierce playthrough of Metallica’s Blackened
August 11
- Pro Tools manufacturer Avid acquired by private equity firm for $1.4bn
- Fender and Juanes join forces for a super-versatile signature HSS Strat, equipped with an onboard mid-boost preamp, finished in Luna White
- EVANS's Hybrid Sensory Percussion System will take hybrid drums to a whole new level
- Google and Universal Music in talks over licensing artists' voices for AI-generated songs
- Echo Fix unveils the EF-P2, a top-quality spring reverb for players serious about making a splash with real springs
- "What the hell is that?" From Marilyn Manson to Zack Snyder: The 6 best covers of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams
- Jason Isbell advises anyone buying a guitar to do this thing first
- Friedman and Jake E Lee roll out the red Tolex for a fire-breathing new signature amp that balances ‘70s Plexi tones with ‘80s aggression “and a little more scream”
- Want to sound like Trevor Horn? Spitfire Audio's new Jupiter sample library can help
August 10
- Gibson's new interview with Jason Isbell on his guitar collection is so good it even includes his Fenders
- Terrible, terrifying and mostly unusable: What happened when we 'created' 10 AI tunes in an hour
- Session guitar legend Brent Mason reveals the overlooked effects pedal he always has on his pedalboard – and now we want one too
- Space Brain Circuits' DarkSky-4 synth might be as good as its name suggests
- Who is the greatest of all time: The Beatles or Queen? Producer Steve Lillywhite has an interesting take
- Sonicake releases new affordable guitar multi-effects pedal Matribox II
- Three tracks a day, no crazy kit or plugins: Why the Ballad of Darren is "the first real Blur album in 20 years"
- Fred's Lab launches multi-timbral desktop spectral synth Manatee
- "I said, ‘Well, it’ll just be a back-up song in case some other things don’t work out’" – How Robbie Robertson wrote The Band's classic song, The Weight
August 9
- The Band guitarist Robbie Robertson dies, aged 80
- Rabea Massaad rated three overdrive pedals highly in a blindfold test – and the winner was a tweaked '90s classic
- TC Electronic already has three more Ampworx preamp pedals ready: and they're based on the JCM800, 5150 and Dual Rectifier
- Sixto Rodriguez, singer-songwriter and focus of Sugar Man documentary, dies aged 81
- Electro Harmonix's tiny Pico Platform might be the perfect excuse to add a compressor to your pedalboard
- Producer Steve Lillywhite: "For me, a powerchord is laziness", explains why The Edge only used them for one U2 song
- Fast-rising session guitarist Sus Vasquez: "There was no other thing I wanted to do in life, I just wanted to play the guitar"
- Post Malone gifts $5,000 Telecaster to an 11-year-old fan in the crowd
August 8
- Issue 325 of Computer Music is on sale now
- 5 songs guitarists need to hear by... John Martyn
- Behringer: "We are a 'not for profit' org as all our earnings are reinvested"
- Fender’s Custom Shop turns loose the Masterbuilders on the unique, exquisite and eco-friendly California Streetwoods Collection
- "Innovative and authentic" - Could Pioneer's DDJ-REV5 be the DJ controller we've been waiting for?
- Gibson is bringing “the ultimate guitar experience” to London as new flagship Garage to open in early 2024
- It's a fact - Daft Punk's Discovery and Homework really were recorded in a bedroom (and mixed on a JVC boombox): "That little boombox is what we mixed and recorded both Homework and Discovery on. That was the magic one"
- Origin Effects takes Centaur stage in the klone wars with the Halcyon Gold Overdrive – a pedal that “is more than just a clone”
- Gibson gives the Hummingbird a Bluebonnet makeover for Miranda Lambert’s signature Bluebird
- “I invented this DJ technology, I did this with nothing”: Grandmaster Flash on turntablism, Rapture and Wheels Of Steel
- The iconic Roland TR-808 tracks that made a legend
- Unlock the potential of AI-powered FAST plugins for less with Focusrite's Summer Sale
- Baby Audio's Caspar Bock on their "evolution" of the cult classic Yamaha CS01: "We wanted to make a synth that sounded as musical, gritty and ‘real’ as the original"
- It's 808 day! Celebrate with a free Roland online studio, tips, techniques, movies, music, emulations and more
August 7
- EarthQuaker Devices presents room, hall and plate reverbs in a innovative, compact format with the Ledges Tri-Dimensional Reverberation Machine
- Watch Marty Friedman nail the greatest solo in thrash metal history as he plays Tornado Of Souls with Megadeth at Wacken
- John Lennon: "Somebody let off a firecracker onstage and every one of us looked at each other, because each thought it was the other that had been shot. It was that bad.” – Why The Beatles retired from the stage
- Metallica’s Kirk Hammett flubs intro to Nothing Else Matters in front of 80,000 people and recovers like a champ
- Loopop vs. Behringer: content creator accuses brand of "spreading lies" after it alleges he refused to review gear because it won't provide free units
- Watch John Petrucci and Zakk Wylde jam onstage for the first time ever as they dial up the shred on BLS’s Suicide Messiah
- Ohm Force makes legacy plugins available for free: Ohmicide, Symptohm, Ohmboyz and more
- Billy Sheehan's 6 top tips for bass players: “Listen to any great band and think about how the bass and drums work together, like Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart, or Steve Harris and Nicko McBrain"
August 5
- The Avalanches to Daft Punk: who has the record for the most samples in a song?
August 4
- Gibson president Cesar Gueikian teases the return of the Les Paul Supreme
- Wolfgang Van Halen on his approach as a multi-instrumentalist: "Drums are, to me, the most important part. It's the backbone of everything"
- Always-on compression: is a compressor pedal the missing link in your guitar tone?
- Mdou Moctar launches GoFundMe as band members are left stranded in the USA following military coup in Niger
- YouTube luthier Burls Art redefines Charcoal Burst as he scorches maple with fire and uses epoxy and copper to make a unique baritone guitar
- Nathan Micay: "Less is not more. If I can make ten different weird sounds work together, that's awesome"
- Show Us Your Studio #6: "My 'studio nook' is in the hall cupboard... it can even double as a sensory deprivation tank!"
- Sunn Amps reveals first new post-resurrection product range
- Pat Metheny on Wes Montgomery: "He had this amazing ability to describe very complex ideas in ways that were so clear and well backed up with spirit and soul"
- 10 tips for getting started with your Ableton Push 3
August 3
- Kemper Liquid Profiling officially arrives as a free update: amp profiling and modelling in harmony?
- We discovered a free plugin goldmine! This pay-what-you-can bundle contains 307 free mixing and effects plugins (no, that's not a typo)
- "It wasn’t a rip-off!": Who sampled Revolver? The great, good and weird tracks that borrowed from the iconic Beatles album
- Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain reveals he was partially paralysed after suffering a stroke in January
- AIR's Sprite multi-effects plugin is a 'modern take' on the hardware effects processors of the '80s
- Learn to play 7 of the greatest guitar riffs of the 21st century
- The Boss AC-22LX could be the acoustic guitar amp you didn't know you needed
- IK Multimedia's new UNO Synth Pro X adds more dials and power to the Pro range but doesn't cost any more cash
August 2
- Thanks to Autochroma, granular synthesis can now be 'fun'. Yes, really…
- Fancy a free chorus pedal? Bag the Maestro Comet Chorus completely free with any guitar purchase from the Gibson Reverb Demo Shop
- 10 innovative plugins pushing synthesis forward
- Metallica's Kill 'Em All played in the style of ZZ Top actually works really well
- Quadral 3 is the $59 synth that claims to make film and game soundtracks easy for everyone
- "This is a song I wrote as a goodbye to my friend Chris Cornell" – Pearl Jam's Mike McCready performs rare live vocal performance with tribute song
- Georgia: “You can do so much with a computer, but I still love the aesthetic of my vintage gear”
- "Any jobs going?": Taylor Swift hands out $55 million in bonuses to tour crew
- Gary Moore classic interview: "Obviously I don’t play the same way, but I could do a passable imitation of Peter Green; if you gave me a guitar I could sit here and probably get closer than anybody else"
- KRK launches limited-edition chrome-plated studio monitors designed in collaboration with Scott Storch
August 1
- “Fluence pickups are unlike anything else there is”: Slipknot’s Mick Thomson is latest high-profile metal player to join Fishman’s artist roster
- What does the future of synthesis look like?
- Is Aphex Twin's new EP named after this hardware sequencer?
- Sunn Amplifiers is officially back, with new amps from the legendary brand expected by the end of year
- Bernie Marsden’s vintage guitar gear is officially now up for sale via ATB Guitars’ Reverb store
- Watch Shane Hawkins play drums on Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and Black Sabbath songs with Taylor Hawkins’ cover band, Chevy Metal
- 10 home studio mistakes every producer makes
- Zacky Vengeance and KHDK Electronics bang their heads together for the brain-eating Night of the Living Shred high-gain preamp pedal
- PSP's BinAmp captures the legendary tone of Pink Floyd's favourite delay in software
- Ujam's UFX Reverb plugin is about as '2023' as reverbs get
- Recording Week Showcase 2023: A-Z
- Top songwriting guitar chord tricks to try